What You Should Consider Before Writing Duplicates for Social Media

When duplicating for different platforms, it’s important to understand the differences in the mood of the social media network as well as in your audience. The norms for email copy, website copy, and social media copy are different and there are things you should think about before you write the copy. Not only that, you don’t want to put the same duplicate everywhere. You want to be innovative and fresh on each platform that you place any copy. Here are some questions to consider.

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1. What Platform Rules Exist? – Each platform has its own rules that you should keep in mind before you create the copy for that medium.

2. How Long Should Be Your Content? Long? Short? – Lengths of content is different from each social media platform. As you know, with Twitter, you get only 140 characters to make sure your message is heard. With Facebook you have a more space, as well as with others. On your blog you basically have unlimited space. So consider which social media you’re writing for before you duplicate it.

3. Which Subgroup of Your Audience Is Here? – Every person who is a member of your target audience can not reach you via every single social media network. Some will be on Twitter, some on Pinterest and others will only want to read your blog. It’s up to them, and something you should think about. You can investigate into which subset of your audience is following you on each social media network so you can focus the copy more toward them.

4. Is the Platform Buttoned-Up (Liked LinkedIn) or More Free Like Twitter? – Some social media platforms are more serious and professional. That means that sharing that video of your favorite rock star artist or that picture of the cat hung up in the blinds might not be a good idea on LinkedIn, whereas sharing it on Facebook might be fine if you can connect it somehow to your business.

5. Which Should You Use? #Hashtags or Keywords? – Even Facebook has got with the practice of using hashtags, but is it appropriate to use them on every platform? Probably not. You may show that you’re not that creative if you are using them too much.

6. Is the Platform Visually Based? – Yes, it’s true that Twitter is trying to be more visual, as is Facebook. But, Pinterest and Instagram still lead the charge on being visual. With just a text-based update, those two platforms would not do well. You should consider that prior to creating the content.

7. What Is Your Objective? – What is the point of your update or share? What you are hoping to achieve? Do you have a well thought out, specific, numbers-driven objective in which you can measure results?

8. Should a CTA be included? – A CTA (Call To Action), should always be included, but what’s important is how you do it on each social media network. Your audience will be ticked off by what type of CTA, or would get you kicked out of the social media network? Avoid those.

9. Is Your Duplicate Sharable? – A really important factor for social media copy is whether or not it’s shareable. Shorter, visually oriented, relatable content is better to post on social media when you want it to be shared.

Creating copy for social media is different from writing keyword-rich articles, just like writing blog posts is different from writing keyword-rich articles. In order to achieve success, these differences must be apparent as you create your content strategy.

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